Sentences with phrase «grown as biofuel»

Biofuels offer one possibility for reducing the carbon footprint of these transport systems, but many plants grown as biofuel feedstocks compete with food crops and / or wild lands.

Not exact matches

These are also known as biofuels, i.e. plants that would otherwise potentially go to feed people (or grown on land that would otherwise grow food) going into gas tanks instead.

By turning crops such as corn, sugarcane and palm oil into biofuels — whether ethanol, biodiesel, or something else — proponents hope to reap the benefits of the carbon soaked up as the plants grow to offset the carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted when the resulting fuel is burned.

However, an equivalent amount is lost through logging, clearing of land for grazing, and growing biofuel crops such as palm oil, soya bean and sugar.

It warns that some biofuels production methods can cause large increases in greenhouse gas emissions, such as clearing Indonesian rainforest to grow palm plantations for biodiesel.

In addition the plants that are eventually used to produce biofuel pull carbon from the atmosphere as they grow, contributing to greener overall production process.

The algae grow quickly, tolerate extreme weather conditions and do not pose the same issues as biofuel crops that are grown both for fuel and food.

Growing crops for fuel — known as biofuels — represents another potential way of cutting GHGs by replacing fossil fuels (biofuels created underground by nature over millions of years).

But the thinking is that the carbon dioxide emitted by renewable sources will eventually get reabsorbed through photosynthesis, as trees, corn, and other biofuel sources grow back.

For example, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and other bodies agree that the rush to grow biofuels, justified as a decarbonization measure, has raised food prices and contributed to rainforest destruction.

«There's substantial disagreement on possible future yields of energy crops,» he said, as well as questions on the consequences of growing biofuels on water supply.

Food and biofuel crops could be grown and maintained in many places where it wasn't previously possible, such as deserts, landfills and former mining sites, thanks to an inexpensive, non-chemical soil additive.

However, the CSU analysis finds that the details of where and how you grow the plant material is just as significant or even more significant for the greenhouse gas footprint of the biofuel, said Field.

A similar study by Michigan Technological University sponsored by UOP found that jet biofuel from camelina could reduce emissions of greenhouse gases by as much as 84 percent and be grown in rotation with wheat crops.

But the biofuel crop has already come in for criticism both because it is displacing cereals in other places where it is grown, such as Kenya and Tanzania, as well as requiring fertilizers to get good oil yields.

Add to that the looming specter of growing crops for biofuel, which reduce available land for food, feed and fiber production, he said: «Biofuel is going to be an unmitigated disaster, that's as true in an African village as it is in Iowa.biofuel, which reduce available land for food, feed and fiber production, he said: «Biofuel is going to be an unmitigated disaster, that's as true in an African village as it is in Iowa.Biofuel is going to be an unmitigated disaster, that's as true in an African village as it is in Iowa.»

In contrast, the grasses and other flowers and plants that grow naturally when such lands are left fallow — species such as goldenrod, frost aster, and couch grass, among others — can deliver roughly the same amount of biofuel energy per hectare per year if fertilized, yet also reducing CO2 by more than twice as much as corn.

Interest in biofuels — fuel derived from living organisms including biomass or their metabolic byproducts, such as manure from cows — grew throughout the end of the twentieth century as these are renewable energy sources, unlike other natural resources such as petroleum, coal, and nuclear fuels.

In their quest to make cellulosic biofuel a viable energy option, many researchers are looking to marginal lands - those unsuitable for growing food - as potential real estate for bioenergy crops.

The new study estimates land available for growing biofuels — crops such as corn or sugarcane that can be converted to fuels - at between 56 and 1035 million hectares, compared to previous estimates of 320 to 1411 million hectares.

PULLMAN — Norman Lewis, regents professor and director of the Institute of Biological Chemistry at WSU, will give a far - reaching futuristic perspective of our growing energy needs, with an emphasis on biofuels, in Seattle this month as part of WSU's «Innovators» luncheon.

Many scientists and policymakers are advocating increased incentives for preserving tropical forests, especially in the face of demand for clearing forest to grow biofuel crops such as soy.

Just as incinerators often start out burning forestry waste, and end up using virgin wood once supply of «waste» runs out, so too anaerobic digestion plants may begin by using food waste, and end up utilizing forest products or other «biofuels» grown deliberately for the purpose.

This works for biofuels, as growing crops absorb atmospheric CO2 and convert it to sugars, oils, etc., leading to no net change in atmospheric CO2 when the fuel is burned — but it does not work for coal, oil or natural gas, however.

Albany's importance as a link in the energy - production chain is poised to grow under Global Partners» effort to win state permission to handle oil - sands crude and biofuels for shipping over objections of neighbors and environmental groups.

Furthermore, as significant as that carbon sequestration by switchgrass is, there are farmers growing switchgrass and other plants to raise cattle that have double to triple + the rate of carbon sequestration as the switchgrass for biofuel guys!

After many interviews with biologists and climate scientists focused on the Amazon, as well as people like Bruce Babbitt, the former United States secretary of the interior who has spent a lot of time crisscrossing the Amazon, I remain convinced that there is a path to development for Brazil — even with the growing global appetite for soy and biofuels and roads to the Pacific — that can preserve a large fraction of the vast forest region.

Whatever you grow that you don't use for food can then be fed into biofuel production (as well as biochar production, as a soil amendment, meaning NEGATIVE emissions), and then you have some amount of ethanol, biodiesel, or bio-based hydrocarbon product.

Melillo's study suggests that changes in the way land is used, as a consequence of growing crops for biofuels, is not taken into account, and if it were then those biofuels would be shown to actually cause more greenhouse gases to be released than fossil... Read more

A minimal first step would be to ensure that all fossil fuel inputs to biofuels are carbon - taxed, including natural gas used as feedstock for ammonia - based fertilizers of corn grown for ethanol.

And if you simply grew stuff to produce biochar, the carbon economics would be turned on their head, just as they are if old - growth forest is stripped for biofuel plantations.

A further step would be to develop a product - based approach that accounts for typical carbon sequestration during the growing phase, carbon emissions from processing, and implicit emissions from land use changes as well as combustion emissions for each biofuel and biomass type.

It's now well - established that large - scale U.S. production of biofuels such as ethanol from corn has accomplished little or nothing (or even negative) in its stated goals of reducing oil dependence and cutting emissions of greenhouse gases, and has functioned instead as a full - employment program for agribusiness (and a political production racket for Iowa and other corn - growing states).

«The U.S. and Europe can not produce enough plant feedstocks to meet targets» for biofuel production — even with cellulosic corn — as defined by government mandates, which are largely being driven by a growing demand for energy independence and national security concerns, said Thurmond.

Agrofuels (also known as «biofuels») are putting major and growing pressure on our land, food and forests, as well as damaging both people and planet.

Thanks to increasing pressure to reduce carbon emissions and cut the use of foreign oil, biofuels - renewable, home - grown and marketed as less damaging than fossil fuels - have used corporate and political clout to win billions in subsidies from the US taxpayer.

As global demand for meat, biofuels, and other soy products has grown, the soybean market has kept pace.

With car demand expected to grow 12.5 % this year, China, which already has the world's largest biofuels plant, is working with European agencies to see how plant matter and animal waste - based fuels might serve as alternatives to fossil fuels.

«As the world's population grows, people will increasingly rely on marginal lands — particularly drylands — for production of food, wood and biofuels.

In part as a result of climate change mitigation policies to promote biofuels and growing concern about food insecurity in middle and high income countries, large - scale land acquisition in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America has displaced small landholders and contributed to food price increases.

95 The case for crop - based biofuels was further undermined when a team led by Paul Crutzen, a Nobel Prize — winning chemist at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany, concluded that emissions of nitrous oxide, a potent greenhouse gas, from the synthetic nitrogen fertilizer used to grow crops such as corn and rapeseed for biofuel production can negate any net reductions of CO2 emissions from replacing fossil fuels with biofuels, thus making biofuels a threat to climate stability.

It is unlikely that crops grown specifically for the production of cellulosic biofuels will be developed in significant quantities as technology gains and bioethanol prices are unlikely to favour production over alternative crops.

Yet its indispensability will erode in increments each year, as EVs eventually grow from novelty to significance and new biofuels start to emulate oil's trump cards of convenience and energy density.

Developed countries push for a mitigation approach where they see agricultural land usage as a way to reduce emissions through false solutions like biofuels and bioenergy carbon capture and storage which reduce the amount of land we can use for growing food.

Refining transportation fuels requires water, as does producing fuels — for example, mining coal, extracting petroleum, or growing crops for biofuels.

As is the case with biofuels, there is also the significant risk that inappropriately applied incentives to encourage biochar might increase the cost and reduce the availability of food crops, if growing biomass feedstocks becomes more profitable than growing food.»

At the same time, demand for crops is expected to rise rapidly as the population grows, people in eat more and biofuels are increasingly used for energy.

Just as diversity through electricity was the key to America's industrial sector being able to increase productivity without increasing oil consumption, so too is it one of two keys (the other being diversity through biofuel) to fueling the growing number of vehicles expected on global highways without adding to the strain on global oil supplies and without everyone choking on their own exhaust.

IMHO a better approach to biofuel would be a crop that can be grown without irrigation in wasteland such as the playas of the desert southwest and that yields an oil that does not require distillation or other energy intensive processing.

Recent laws in the United States and Europe that mandate the increasing use of biofuel in cars have had far - flung ripple effects, economists say, as land once devoted to growing food for humans is now sometimes more profitably used for churning out vehicle fuel.